In recent years, along with increasing hygiene consciousness amongst consumers, there is a strong demand for removing not only a dirty appearance but also odor that reminds us of the presence of dirt. In particular, the presence of urine and stools cannot be shut off from a living environment. In addition, the odor thereof strongly reminds us of the excreta themselves, and hence gives unpleasant feeling to a human, the extent of which is particularly large among offensive odor from a living environment. In a toilet, stools are easily exhausted from the room by water washing, while a small amount of urine remains as a droplet outside of a toilet bowl and stays on the site for a long period of time because of the difficulty of a visual check for its presence. Thus, the toilet has a tendency to become a source of offensive odor. Further, sanitary products, such as underwear, a diaper, and a menstrual hygiene product, to which urine being deposited, may also exist in a living environment for a given period, and thus may become a source of offensive odor derived from urine.
It is known that urine itself generally generates no unpleasant odor, and generate unpleasant odor through activities of a microorganism. An example of the unpleasant odor includes ammonia resulting from decomposition of urea with urease, and the inhibition of the generation of urine odor (ammonia odor) by using urease inhibitor has been proposed (for example, see Patent Documents 1 to 4).
However, ammonia is a component of offensive order having a high threshold (i.e. the odor is sensed only at high concentrations), and therefore, ammonia odor is rarely strongly sensed at present when excreta are instantaneously exhausted from the room owing to spread of a water washing system.
Meanwhile, a β-glucuronidase is an enzyme that hydrolyzes compounds prepared by glucuronidation of various alcohols, phenols, amines and the like (glucuronides), and exists in many living organisms such as bacteria, fungi, plants and animals. For example, it is known that glucuronides secreted into a human sweat are involved in the production of substances that generate axillary odor through metabolism of a bacterium living in the skin (Patent Document 5). However, the relation between the enzyme and the urine odor has not been known.
[Patent Document 1] JP-A-2006-255290
[Patent Document 2] JP-A-2004-91338
[Patent Document 3] JP-A-05-137774
[Patent Document 4] JP-A-2006-192127
[Patent Document 5] JP-A-2002-255776